Several years ago while driving on a two lane road in Georgia, I topped a little hill in a residential area that had a speed limit of 45 mph. I always thought this was a bit fast for this area as there were many children that lived and played near this road. On this particular evening, as I topped the little hill, I was so glad to be doing my usual 35 mph, for just over the hill, in the road, was a small boy about age 5, kneeling down over a dog that had just been hit and killed. This innocent little lad was shaking the dog, apparently trying to wake it up. With just a moderate application of the brakes I was able to stop short, where I parked my car and with hazard lights on, removed both youngster and dog. This was the most gut wrenching thing, realizing that had I not stopped, there would have most likely been two deaths on this same spot. But the hard part was explaining to the little fellow that the dog he loved so dearly was taking a nap he would never awaken from.

This post has been edited by SCShamrock on 28-Jul-2004, 05:29 PM

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The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. ~John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859

Education: that which reveals to the wise, and conceals from the stupid, the vast limits of their knowledge. ~Mark Twain

There's a dear little plant that grows in our Isle Twas St . Patrick himself, sure, that set it; And the sun of his labour with pleasure did smile, And with dew from his eye often wet it. It grows through the bog, through the brake, through the Mireland, and they call it the dear little shamrock of Ireland.